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Weight Management

Diet lose weight ?… no way, rather get slim, trim and fab.

Weight Management; diet lose weight

Yo-yo-effect

The problem with diets is that they create a yo-yo effect. As long as you are on the diet, you may or may not lose weight, and when you stop you soon weigh more than when you started. A change in Lifestyle is needed for you to lose weight and keep it off.

Probably most important of all is food; – the quality (nutritional value) and variety of the food you put in your mouth and swallow, and the amount of calories it contains.

The most bottommest of bottom lines is – if you eat more calories than you burn, you will put on weight. 😉 Guaranteed!

Red-hot metabolism

To keep your metabolism on the trot, eat 5-6 small meals per day with at least a 3 hour gap in between, except fruit that can be eaten 30 minutes before a meal, preferably not with a meal, as it goes rotten and causes gas when eaten with other foodstuffs.

Exertion helps elevate metabolism, especially weight training and interval training. Choose something you enjoy so that you can maintain it without too much effort.

Variety is the spice of life

Our forefathers and -mothers used to eat a lot of bark, roots, leaves and such that had wonderful medicinal properties. Today we eat a very cultivated, limited variety of foodstuffs, and my guess is that we do not get all the nutrition we need, so we are always hungry for something. Other problems are chemical fertilisers that create imbalances, overplanting that rob the ground of its essential nutrients, crop spraying with poisons that we then take in and deposit and accumulate in our fat cells.

Eating any food type to the exclusion of the others is asking for trouble in the long run.

The impact of emotions on Weight Management

Some of us use food as substitute for other aspects that are lacking in our lives, like love, “sweetness”, or a “hunger” for spirituality. Our size may be an indication of what we think of ourselves, but have not achieved yet. It may also be a suppression of feelings, i.e. “swallowed” feelings, that we feel we are unable to express for whatever reason, and there are probably as many as there are people with a weight problem (under- or overweight). There are some of us who use our size to keep people away from us because we are afraid of emotional involvement and getting hurt, so we swallow our pain of loneliness.

As babies we were pacified with sweet things to keep us from crying so we have developed an unnaturally sweet tooth. [no blame] We should wean ourselves from our ultra sweet tooth. Rather find out what “sweetness” is lacking in life and make sure you get it.

Culprits for undermining Weight Management

The 2 biggest food culprits for weight gain are fat and sugar. The more you limit simple sugars and saturated fats in your diet, the bigger results you will see when you try and lose weight diet. The other culprits for gaining or retaining weight is too much stress and not enough sleep.

Fat in foods

Fat has the highest caloric content and uses very little energy for its absorption. However, we do need fat in our diet for proper functioning, so it should not be cut out altogether. Fat is essential for good brain functioning and is one of the main components of our cell walls.

As we all know there are “good” fats and “bad” fats.

The “bad” fats are usually the fats found in animal products. The reason they are “bad” is because they may and do lay down deposits in artery walls that cause problems sooner or later. Minimise on these fats.

Rather have the “good” fats that are usually found in vegetable matter; nuts, legumes, seeds, and germ part of corn, wheat and other grains.

Proteins and High Protein diets

Protein uses the most energy to convert and hence the high protein diets. My biggest problem with the high protein diet is that my magnesium levels got depleted and I didn’t realise what was wrong until my thigh muscles tore after exercising. So if you decide to go on a high protein diet make sure you take magnesium, as well as a good multi-vitamin and mineral supplements. Another thing is, your breath stinks because of the ketones that are given off. Not so great for anyone living with you. Don’t think chewing gum camouflages it. You are only fooling yourself if you think it does.

Protein shakes

My experience with protein drinks has not been that great. I swallowed sometimes even vile-tasting drinks in the hope to lose weight, and didn’t. This does not mean that no-one has ever lost weight with them, I am sure there are individuals who swear by it, especially if they are selling it. My impression is that there is a lot of whey that comes off the making of cheese and uses had to be found for it, so it was put it into “protein” drinks and flogged as the ultimate in weight loss solution. Most of these protein drinks are chemical factories and are probably doing more harm than good. The problem is, when we are young our bodies seem to be able to cope with most of these things, but the older we get, the more we have to pay the price of our inconsiderate decisions of our youth.

Best plan for Weight Management maintenance

The best thing to do is have a wide variety of foodstuffs and make sure your calories consumed do not exceed your calories expended. If you eat too much at one meal, get more exercise so you can work it off, or eat less at the next meal. Skipping meals is a bad idea. The fattest I ever got was when I was skipping meals in an attempt to lose weight. I ballooned because my metabolism skipped the country and I have been struggling ever since to coax it back.

Sugar – dirty rotten scoundrel.

Sugar in itself is “empty” calories. It doesn’t matter what type of sugar you eat; fructose, sucrose, glucose, etc. The calories are empty because it is devoid of nutritional value, so the brain does not get the normal message that we have eaten enough. The switch doesn’t go off and we consume much more than we need. Sugar wreaks havoc with our blood-sugar because it spikes, then plummets, and we feel hungry again very soon after. It is one of the biggest reasons there are so many people suffering from diabetes these days.

At least if you eat a fruit you get lots of water, vitamins and minerals, as well as roughage with the fruit sugar, you feel satisfied sooner.

Apples and oranges have between 60 – 70 calories and less than 1 gram fat per 150g.

You can see what the equation is.
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NOTE: I can tell you I have a very clear skin, always have. When I eat a bar of chocolate I get a pimple or two. If you have a lot of whiteheads and bumps under your skin, consider cutting out sweets, chocolates, sugar, biscuits and cakes, and fatty foods altogether for at least 6 weeks. Another thing you can cut out is cheese. Combine this with a twice daily cleansing program [cleanse, tone, moisturise] in the problem areas, and you will be surprised by the results in your skin, your face, and your body.

“Aliveness” of food

Another aspect that does not always get too much mention is the amount of energy (aliveness) our food has. The closer to the natural state and the fresher the food, the more energy it has. The higher the vibrational frequency of the food, the better it is for your body.

Activity and exercise

Our bodies were made for activity. Today, most of us spend most our days sitting; at a desk, in front of a computer or TV, in a vehicle or some mode of transport. The exercise we get is popping popcorn into our mouths [in front of TV or at the movies], switching channels, using our thumbs typing out messages on cellphones and so on and our butts keep spreading. The more we sit the bigger our butts grow, and the flabbier we get. The flabbier we get, the more difficult it is to move, the less we move, the bigger we get… a vicious circle.

Optimum exercise levels

Optimum is exercise 6 days/week. Rest 1 day/week. Do strenuous upper body exercises the one day, lower body the other day for at least 20 minutes. Strenuous means you have to get out of breath and sweat, whatever that means for you. Feel the burn. If you start hiccupping you have gone too far. Stop when you get a stitch or feel nauseous. Learn to listen to your body. Become friends with it and it will repay you a hundredfold. Remember to stretch too.

NOTE: Don’t get violent! If you haven’t done any exercise for a while, or longer, ease into it. The same goes for the stretching. Don’t force yourself. Don’t bounce or overstretch to the point of pain. Only stretch till you can feel your muscles releasing, rather go into it slowly and hold it for 20 counts, remember to breathe deeply while doing this, and you will find yourself relaxing deeper and deeper into the stretch. If you are holding your breath, you are forcing it. Breathe deeply, slowly and evenly.

Get creative

If you don’t have time for exercise, get creative e.g. if you go and make yourself tea or coffee do a few squats, lunges, leg lifts, or something else [whatever is appropriate in the environment]. While sitting; tighten the buttocks so that you lift yourself higher in the chair, lift your legs up and down, rotate your ankles, stretch your back turn to the one side facing the back and then the other side, while keeping the back straight, rotate your shoulders forward and back, etc.

Heightened Awareness for Weight Management

Start to catch yourself out when you criticise yourself, call yourself fat, or have negative comments about yourself. Become aware of your internal chatterbox. Change your mind. Focus on what you want, use positive words. Forgive yourself if you have succumbed to temptation. Try to limit the damage. Stop as soon as you possibly can. Rather look at what is bothering you and find a way to approach it, work around it, deal with it, or at least, face it. Plan a strategy that will assist you to overcome the temptation in future. Put the glitch behind you. It’s ok. Resolve to continue with your plan.

Giving up is not an option. Start from scratch.

Changing habits is a process

Remember in most cases it is a process to change habits. At first there is a possibility that you may do what you don’t want to do out of habit, then you get to a point that you realise that you are at that point of decision and still you may do what you want to stop doing. The next stage is where you decide not to do it. Eventually you realise that this is where you would have done it, and the last stage is where it is no longer an issue at all.

If you can get your values to work for you, it will make this process much easier, simpler and get to the end result much quicker.

Posture

Good posture has a number of benefits:

Even if you don’t lose an ounce or gram, if you walk tall, you already look slimmer and more confident.

If you sit and walk upright, you breathe better, which helps with all functions of the body, including metabolism.

When you sit upright, as opposed to slouching and scrunched-up with rounded shoulders, it has an impact on your emotional state. You will feel much more open, capable, centred and positive if you sit and stand upright with your chest open and shoulders comfortably back. You will also be able to breathe better and deeper. Give it a try, now. Can you feel the difference?